


What Doesn’t Kill You (Is Bound to Come Back for Another)

by deadvinesandfanfics



Category: Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: AU, F/F, Murder, Not much tho, Violence, alternate endings, committing murder w/ homegirl, murder babeyyyy, rochester fucking d i e s, u wouldnt understand its a girl thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29990508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadvinesandfanfics/pseuds/deadvinesandfanfics
Summary: My rage at Rochester’s betrayal began to eat away at me. However, the thought of Rochester's mad wife, only a room above mine, began to pique my curiosity. Why was she not in a mad-house if the medical men had pronounced her insane?I should like to talk to her.
Kudos: 1





	What Doesn’t Kill You (Is Bound to Come Back for Another)

**Author's Note:**

> hehe so i had to read jane eyre for English, right?? what better way to create an 'inspired piece' than just ripping the story and murdering rochester?
> 
> haha enjoy lol

'This is my wife,' Rochester had spat after restraining the raging woman. I was shocked; for part human, part beast, Bertha is my double- she is the rage and anger over the loss of identity the marriage promised to bring. Bertha refused to be controlled; a woman whose stature almost equaled her husband's, she fought with him. Finally, when she was roped to a chair, my mind wandered back to when I was bound just as much-in the Red Room at Gateshead.

After the affair was over and I had retired to my room-for I could not leave Thornfield; I had nowhere else to go-my rage at Rochester’s betrayal began to eat away at me. However, the thought of Rochester's mad wife, only a room above mine, began to pique my curiosity. Why was she not in a mad-house if the medical men had pronounced her insane?

I should like to talk to her.

\---

So we would talk, the two of us, through the thick wooden door on the nights that Grace was distracted with her private bottle of gin until Dawn's rose-colored cheeks appeared over the horizon, and the little birds had left their nests.

I would slowly pass books through a crack in the door, to which she would read them quickly and ask for more with fervor, like she were a starving man in a desert. I would raid the library for the days that Grace would be too guarding; for I could not allow her to know of our talks. Bertha would stuff the books in folds of her bed and under old floorboards to hide them from prying eyes.

Rochester had not visited her; not to my knowledge-since he had tied her to the chair and pronounced her to be a monster from hell. I wondered if she had ever been let outside the room willingly, instead of just stealing the key from Grace on nights where she had drunk too much.

\---

‘Mr. Rochester, when has Bertha last been outside?’

He looked up, a strange energy was in his voice, a strange fire in his look, ‘Are you suggesting she be allowed out?’

‘I believe she has been shut up in that attic for too long,’ I replied.

Papers shuffled as he stared at me. I felt as though I would fold into myself, as I were some delicate piece of origami. But I would bear it; his stupid, smug, grin, and his accursed fox-like eyes. I would bear it. For bertha. 'As she deserves.'

‘Sir,’ I interrupted him, ‘you are too unyielding; you speak of her with such hate-it is cruel. She cannot help being mad.’

‘Jane, my darling, it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?"

‘I do indeed, sir.’ At this, his lips pursed.

‘I would never, my dear Jane! And to prove this-my empathy for the woman’s madness, she shall be allowed outside; but just for tonight, when no other servants can see her. I will not have more people that necessary be aware of her existence, as it is my disgrace.’

‘Your disgrace,’ thought I, ‘I have never met such an abominable human in my life-for even Mrs. Reed acknowledged me as a human, and allowed me fresh air and a walk, no matter the disgrace she thought I was!’

\---

As the sun set and the servants retired, Adèle was put to bed and the clock had just struck eleven, I helped Bertha down from the attic. Grace watched silently from the side (as per Rochester’s request), but otherwise said nothing.

Rochester waited by the front door, stiff as the floorboards he stood on, and once we had all stepped out into the cold, he could see why I knew tonight would be a good night for Bertha to go out; because green and purple and blue lights were dancing amongst the stars, performing a show only meant for the whispering land of the north. That night was one of the rare moments when the world dropped us into a fleeting, twilight universe; it was an escape. Bertha let out a shuddering gasp. The tension melted away. The world fell in.

While Bertha and I were distracted, Rochester slipped away inside, like sand falling through fingers, and we were left to our own devices. She was silent, staring up at the stars in wonder-and I couldn’t help but try to imagine the last time she had been outside like this.

\---

It had been about a week since Bertha had seen the sky, and she had become unusually quiet.

Suddenly she broke the silence that had crept into our one-sided conversation, and said, ‘there has to be more to my life to this accursed marriage-this damned cellar room; do you not agree? Help me, Jane, help me leave this place.’

I said I would.

\---

‘She has been asking for you,’ I began from the doorway to his study.

It was late-after the stroke of twelve, and the servants all slept. He didn’t move, didn’t stir as he replied with a flat and unimpressed, ‘Really.’

‘Yes,’ I persisted. ‘She said something about an apology.’

Bertha had said nothing of the sort, in reality. I hoped that God would forgive me for this falsehood-but Bertha was trapped, however-so any moral quandaries would have to be overlooked for now.

‘She has, now, has she?’

‘She wishes to speak to you. To ask for your forgiveness.’

By the time that Rochester rose, a small smile on his lips, I knew he was a doomed man.

\---

What made me do it but the mere fact I could? That I would have a chance of finally winning? This I questioned myself as I ascended the old church-like steps, with Rochester trailing behind me. Oh, how selfish I was; how weak were my trembling hands to think a mistake of such magnitude as Rochester's past could be fixed by one single and flawed being such as myself.

Well, thought I, Bertha is with me, as well.

\---

When he was lured inside her prison, one of wood and walls and stone-she launched herself suddenly and harshly; she showed brute strength as she tackled him. Athletic as he was, she almost throttled him more than once.

He did not see me, creeping up behind him with the kitchen-maid's knife I had retrieved from between the folds of my dress; a large and silvery thing, with the dim light of Bertha's candle gently reflecting off of the blade. I stood there for a moment, contemplating the scene before me.

Just a few weeks ago, I would have wept at the thought of Rochester's death. But now, as I gazed at my hands with the knife pointing towards him, an unfamiliar boldness began to itch under my skin. By itself it was barely a shred of wild courage, but burned far too hot; scorching through my veins and overwhelming my rational judgment. My consciousness battled itself only for a moment, vague and familiar voices distantly arguing, fragments of long-forgotten or entirely fabricated conversations lurching violently against my temple.

Without another moment’s hesitation, I stepped forward and slid the blade into his side-almost like sheathing a finely molded sword into its cover; meant to be-and it fit snuggly into place amongst his organs, even as he jerked when the handle met his back.

I glanced towards Bertha, who had relaxed slightly when she felt Rochester begin to sag against her, deadweight as he was. She nodded at me through her scraggly, unbrushed hair, and darted towards the doorway. She stopped, turned, looked at me once more before swiftly retreating down the stairs in the dead of night.

When I let go of the makeshift sword, it was embedded so deeply in the soft of his gut-like a fine jewel in a golden crown-that it held its place wonderfully. I gently lowered us to the rough of the floorboards, and he stared up at me in what looked like a mix of shock and rage and hurt, all swirling around in one displeased expression.

He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips, -but his voice was stolen, and he died silently.

\---

Reader, I buried him. A quiet ceremony we had; he and I, the empty night sky and the bite of the powdery snow, we alone were present. When I had finished trudging back from the fields, the weight of death finally freed from my grasp, I turned to the drawing room of the manor-house, where Bertha was exploring the full shelves of books, and said-

'Bertha, I have buried Mr. Rochester this morning.'

Her eyes fixated on me-torn away from her hand which was gently resting upon the spine Bewick's History of British Birds; I noted with a distant familiarity-and she grinned at me, her teeth river reeds.

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading!! Kudos are greatly appreciated and very pog :)


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